Research Article Open Access

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to evaluate the effect of food additives as aspartame (ASP) and monosodium glutamate (MSG) either individually or in combination on body indices and antioxidant parameters, of adult male albino rats. Only ASP treated group showed significant increase in body weight gain and kidney index compared to control. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities in the liver were significantly increased in rats of the most treated groups of the tested food additives. Malonaldehyde (MDA) and glutathione (GSH) contents in the liver showed significant reduction in MSG, ASP+MSG and ASP treated groups compared to the control, respectively. The lone administration of ASP and MSG induced marked decrease in the kidney MDA content, compared to the control group. The kidney GSH content was significantly decreased only in ASP+MSG treated group compared to control. The kidney CAT activity was significantly increased in case of rats given mixture of ASP and MSG, while it was not affected in the rest of groups. Positive significant correlation coefficient (r=0.908) between kidney CAT and MDA was observed only for ASP treated group. Brain SOD, CAT and MDA and kidney SOD levels were not varied statistically from the control due to food additives consumption. On contrary, the brain SOD activity was significantly inhibited from the control after treatment with MSG. Therefore, the consumption of the tested food additives induced harmful changes in the antioxidant status of the rat. So, its consumption should be restricted.